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You had to be there. But for everyone else, there was the majestic, iconic as it gets BBC

Andrew Billen

June 4 2012, 1:01am, The Times

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty

It was clearly one of those you-had-to-be-there afternoons. You had to be by the Thames to get the full soaked-to-the-skin, can’t-see-a-thing frustration of the pageant as well as its but-I-wouldn’t-have-missed-it for-world payoff. But the BBC’s coverage produced a loyal facsimile of the same.

This was the state broadcaster deploying all its available “personalities” to keep up the nation’s spirits. Frequently they failed. But at the end, even as the picture froze and the microphones cut out during Land of Hope and Glory, the show managed to moisten our cheeks with salty water that was neither rain nor river.